How to learn the language of your co-workers without even asking
Which of the 5 languages are most popular in the workplace, 3 ways to discover your co-workers’ language without asking, and what Jesus said gives non-Christians the right to judge Christians.
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[0:00:04] JR: Hey, friend. Welcome to the Mere Christians Podcast. I'm Jordan Raynor. How does the gospel influence the work of Mere Christians? Those of us who aren't pastors or religious professionals, but who work as mathematicians, veterinarians, and food scientists?
That's the question we explore every week, and today I'm posing it to one of the greatest of all time, at least in the literary world, Dr. Gary Chapman. He is most well-known for his work on The 5 Love Languages, a franchise of books that is sold an absurd 20 plus million copies.
This episode is squarely focused on Dr. Chapman's great book, The 5 Languages of Appreciation in the Workplace. We talked about which of the five languages are most popular in the workplace. We talked about three ways to discover your co-worker’s language without even asking them. We talked about what Jesus said gives non-Christians the right to judge us Christians at work. You guys are going to love this episode with the legendary Dr. Gary Chapman.
[EPISODE]
[0:01:17] JR: Dr. Chapman, welcome to the Mere Christians Podcast.
[0:01:20] GC: Well, thank you. I am glad to be with you, Jordan.
[0:01:24] JR: You've sold an untruly unbelievable number of books, right, like 20 million something like this in the Love Languages franchise. I got to know, what was the initial print run for, The 5 Love Languages? What was the initial sales estimate for this book?
[0:01:38] GC: Well, I know the first year it sold 8,000 copies.
[0:01:41] JR: No.
[0:01:45] GC: Every year since then, which has been 30 years now, it sells more than it did the year before.
[0:01:52] JR: What was the tipping point?
[0:01:53] GC: It really was not. It just continued to increase bit by bit. Now, there was a little splurge when I was on the Oprah show, in the middle of the stream.
[0:02:03] JR: That helps.
[0:02:04] GC: Yeah, that helps. But other than that, it's just been word of mouth. I think people read it. They realize how they've been missing each other emotionally and they take the quiz. They learn each other's love language. They start speaking it. What I call the love tank fills up. They begin to feel loved and then they want their brother and his wife to read it. I had one young couple say, “Doc, Chairman. We got married. We received four copies of The 5 Love Language as wedding gifts.” I said, “Well, people are looking out for you, man.”
[0:02:33] JR: That's so good. People love you. People love you. That's so good. I got to imagine that selling 20 million books has of a lot of blessings. I'm curious. What's been an unexpected curse or maybe that's too strong for word. What’s been an unexpected challenge of selling 20 million copies of the books in this franchise?
[0:02:53] GC: I hadn't been such a challenge as it has been just a privilege, because when I first started publishing books, I put it all in a nonprofit organization. So, just asking God to guide me on how I can invest in terms of helping marriages and family. I mean, that's what our organization is all about. That's been sometimes a challenge. How to do that? Where to do that? That thing, but –
[0:03:16] JR: But the fun kind of challenges.
[0:03:18] GC: Yeah. It's a fun challenge.
[0:03:19] JR: It's an issue of stewardship, right?
[0:03:21] GC: Yeah, absolutely. People ask me if I ever get bored speaking on, The 5 Love Languages? I say, “No.” Because first of all, I know that whenever the audience, they're people that don't understand it. They may have heard the term love languages, but they don't get the concept and they've never learned each other's language. Secondly, I know it's going to help some people. It can change marriage. It can save marriages. I don't ever get bored talking about The 5 Love Languages.
[0:03:49] JR: Some of the best advice I've ever gotten as a writer was before you pick a book to write, make sure it's something that you're passionate enough about to talk about for 10, 20, or in your case, 30 years, because if the book hits, that's what's going to happen, so you better be really, really excited about this thing. It's got to clearly be a word from the Lord.
Hey, so Dr. Chapman, you're of course best known for your work in The 5 Love Languages, but many people don't know that you served as a pastor for 50 years. You're calling in from it looks like your office there. You only recently retired from the role of pastor. Personally, a big part of the reason why this podcast exists is I believe the workplace will be one of the primary places where non-Christians experience the love of Christ in this post-Christian context when they are less likely than ever to darken the door of a church to experience God's love for the first time. Would you agree with that?
[0:04:40] GC: Yeah. I think so. No question about it. We either are lights in the midst of darkness, or we just shut the light down and just blend in. That's never God's intention. We’re to be lights in the midst of darkness. In the workplace, we're going to encounter many people who are not followers of Christ, who know nothing really about it. So, yeah, I think it's exceedingly important that we learn how to communicate to people in the workplace in a positive way.
[0:05:08] JR: Which is exactly why I wanted you to hear today to talk about this terrific book you published years ago, contextualizing the five love languages to the workplace. This book called, The 5 Languages of Appreciation in the Workplace, but beyond the missional case for loving our coworkers well, there’s also a clear business case for getting this right. Can you share a little bit about what you've learned about the value of getting appreciation right in the workplace?
[0:05:36] GC: Yeah. Honestly, Jordan, what motivated me to write this book and I wrote it with Paul White, Dr. Paul White, who is a Christian psychologist who had spent 20 years working with business. We discovered research that indicated that 70% of the workers in this country, say they feel little to no appreciation at work. 64% of the people that leave a job and go to another job say they left primarily because they didn't feel appreciated where they were.
[0:06:03] JR: Not because of money.
[0:06:05] GC: Not because of money. We tend to think they go for more money. That's not necessarily true. So, when we discovered that, then I said to him, “Man, okay, I'm game. Let's do some research. Let's check this out before we write the book.” What we did, he went into businesses and would give a job satisfaction test. Then he would share the concept of the appreciation languages. Then the people in the group would take what we call the MBA inventory, the Motivation by Appreciation inventory. Each coworker would know everybody else's primary appreciation language at work and their secondary and the one that's least important.
Then he would go back a year later and give them a job satisfaction test, same group. In every case, it was statistically improved. That is what motivated us to write the book because we believe it can make a difference in the workplace. When people don't feel appreciated in the workplace, they are less likely to give 100% to the job. They are more likely to take sick days when they're not sick because they like not working. They're not going to be as productive as they could be, because they're not highly motivated.
Even on the bottom line, it's worthwhile for people to feel appreciated. They're going to accomplish more for you. When that does happen, when they do feel appreciated, typically they identify with a mission of the organization, whatever that mission is. They give 100%. They can hardly wait to get to work, because they just love what they're doing. They see it as a way of serving people. Consequently, the customer is pleased. Again, influence is the bottom line in terms of business. It's a huge effort. It's a huge need, I should say, in the workplace. We're excited about the way it's being accepted and being used.
[0:07:47] JR: Even if it wasn't good for the bottom line, it's still intrinsically good, because Jesus called us to love our neighbors ourselves. Before we talk about how to do this well, how to show appreciation and love to those we work with. I want to hear you draw out the differences between recognition and appreciation, because I think this is a really important distinction.
[0:08:06] GC: Yeah. Recognition and most companies have some recognition program. It normally involves either longevity. You've been here 20 years, we've all recognized you and give you –
[0:08:17] JR: We're going to give you a watch.
[0:08:18] GC: Give you a watch. The first year we gave you a mug. Now we're going to give you a watch. Secondly, recognition probably most likely focuses on productivity. If they've done well in their project, whatever it was, then we recognize them for that. Recognition focuses primarily on productivity and how long they've been there. Whereas appreciation focuses on the person. Now, it may involve, certainly may involve from their productivity to be sure, but it expresses interest in them as a person. It communicates to them. I appreciate you as a person. You're not just a cog in a machine here. I value you as a person.
The other factor is recognition typically starts at the top and comes down. The leadership decides we're going to recognize people for five years, 10 years, 15 years, and we're going to recognize the groups of employees that do da, da, da, da. Everybody knows that. Everybody in the company knows that. They're expecting their watch when they get to be 20. It’s not really that big a deal, because everybody gets it. Appreciation is more individualized.
[0:09:28] JR: Yeah. That's good. Yeah, you wrote in the book, “Recognition is largely about behavior.” I thought that was a good way to put it. “Appreciation focuses not only on performance, but affirms the employee's value as a person.” That's very much a Christian value. It's one of the ways that Christ's powers can be distinct in valuing people beyond their productivity in treating human beings as human beings and not just human resources, right?
I also love what you said, what you said about the relational direction and the difference between recognition and appreciation. Recognition is always top-down. Appreciation can come from anyone within the organization, including peers. I'm curious if you guys have seen instances in your work in which some employees actually appreciate appreciation more from their peers than they do top-down from their superiors.
[0:10:18] GC: Yeah. I think that is true because they interface with their colleagues much more than they do a supervisor. So, they don't necessarily expect a supervisor who has a hundred people under their supervision. They don't necessarily expect them to get to know them as a person, etc. as much as they do the people that are working with them. When we originally started to write the book, we were thinking of writing it to leaders, managers, and supervisors, but we realized, no, this can start anywhere in a company.
It can be a company of 2,000 people, but here's a group of 10 people that work together on a regular basis and they get the idea, why don't we read this book? Why don't we take this quiz, why don't we learn how to express appreciation to each other by learning each other's appreciation language? Then somebody else next door is going to hear about it. So, it can start anywhere and begin to permeate the company. It doesn't have to start at the top.
[0:11:12] JR: Yeah. I love that you pointed out, because we got a lot of leaders listening to this podcast, but a lot of people who are working in middle management or at the very bottom of an org chart. Anyone can get a lot out of these concepts. All right, let's get practical. What are the five languages of appreciation in the workplace? For those who know the five love languages, this is going to sound pretty similar, right?
[0:11:32] GC: That's right. We essentially took the love languages to work. Okay. One of them is words of affirmation and looking for things about them that you can genuinely express appreciation. All of these languages of appreciation have what I call dialects. One dialect, for example, would be words of praise in which you're focusing on something they've done and you're praising them for that. It may also focus on their character. For example, I just asked your listeners this question, has anyone ever expressed appreciation to you about a character trait? For example, I said to you something like, “I just want you to know, one of the things I appreciate about you is your integrity. I know if you tell me something, it's going to be true.” We don't do that.
See, there's another dialect. It's looking for personality traits and character traits, or as I said, personality traits to say to an employee, whether it's a fellow employee, or whether it's one that works under your supervision to say, “You know one of the things I appreciate about you is your positive attitude. When I bring up an idea in the group, our group, I always know there's going to be some people are going to say, ‘Well, that won't work. We tried that 20 years ago.’ But your response” –
[0:12:45] JR: Oh, your organization too. Interesting. Yeah.
[0:12:47] GC: Yeah. But then you say to them, “but I can almost predict when I share an idea, at least you're going to say, ‘It's worth a try. Let's give it a try.’ I appreciate that about you.” It's looking for different aspects of the person that you can express appreciation for, so words of affirmation.
[0:13:05] JR: I love the way you articulated that; the dialects of words of affirmation. If I got them right, praise for accomplishments, affirmation for character, and praise for personality. That's great. What's the second language of appreciation in the workplace?
[0:13:18] GC: Well, these are in no particular order of importance, but another one would be acts of service. Doing something to help the person in the workplace. It may be helping them with their computer. In fact, in today's world, almost everybody my age needs help with computers.
[0:13:36] JR: You've grown in your love of acts of service, yeah.
[0:13:41] GC: It may also be things like, “When you go down the workroom, could you pick this up for me?” That is thinking of ways you can help the other person.
[0:13:47] JR: That's good. Words of affirmation, acts of service. What's next on the list of the five languages?
[0:13:54] GC: Well, one would be gifts.
[0:13:56] JR: Yup. That one's pretty straightforward.
[0:13:58] GC: This something that we regularly do in recognition already? But here's the thing. If a person's appreciation language is gifts, it's not that it has to be something expensive. It's that you have to know them well enough to know what kind of gift they would appreciate. If they're into sports and a sports team, then a gift to a sports event would be wonderful for them. You might give it to somebody else in the group. They don't even go to sports events. They don't have time for that.
[0:14:28] JR: Yeah. I'll quickly round out the other appreciation languages, and I want to pitch the MBA inventory because I was so impressed with this. We talked about words of affirmation. We talked about acts of service. We talked about gifts. The other one's quality time and physical touch, which man, that's a tough one in the workplace. You guys, basically say in the book, yeah, this isn't the primary language for pretty much anyone in the workplace, but this MBA inventory, I was so blown away by the value of this.
I’m a big believer in – when I’m writing a book, I don't think about it like a $20 product. I think about it like a $2,000 product, because I'm not asking somebody to just give me 20 bucks. I'm asking them to give me five hours of their life. After I got done reading, The 5 Languages of Appreciation in the Workplace, I'm like, “This is a $2,000 book.” Because of the MBA inventory. This is an online test. You get a free code when you spend, I don't know, 15, 20 bucks on the book. Talk a little bit about the features of this inventory and how it works, Dr. Chapman.
[0:15:25] GC: Yeah. I think it is important. Super important, because otherwise people can just read the book and think, “Well, that's an interesting idea.” But this is the way to make it practical in the workplace. As you said, with every book that comes a free code, and with that code, you get a free inventory, and you answer the questions in the inventory. Then it will give you information on your primary appreciation language at the workplace, what would be most meaningful to you. Then what is the second most meaningful? Also, how close those two are, because sometimes one and two can be rather close. Then the one that's least important. That's the one that it's not going to mean much to you at all in the workplace, okay?
[0:16:04] JR: Basically, physical touch.
[0:16:05] GC: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Almost no one said physical touch. All the HR people would push back, “No, we don't touch in the workplace.” Anyway, what we say about the physical thing is if you see somebody give others a high five, it's okay to give them a high five.
[0:16:18] JR: Yeah. Right. Exactly. Right. There you go.
[0:16:20] GC: But if you don't see them touching anybody else, don't touch them, okay? If you touch them and they’re stepping up, don't ever touch them again. We actually left that off of the MBA inventory, but we have a whole chapter in the book on appropriate and inappropriate touches in the workplace. Okay. Imagine what would happen, because once each of you gets your individual feedback, then there's a form that you can put it in where everybody gets one sheet of paper and it tells you words of affirmation. It gives the names of the people for the words of affirmation in your workgroup. That's number one. Then what is the secondary of each one of you?
Everybody in the work group then has that information on everybody else in the workgroup. They know the one that's least important. You're wasting your time and energy to use that one. They know the one that's most important and the one that's the second most important. They have specific ideas on number one. It really makes it easy for you to know how to express appreciation to them in the way that's most meaningful to them. It's a valuable tool when you have that information.
[0:17:24] JR: I love it. I love how generous you were in the book though. You guys, basically said, “Hey, listen. Some of your friends are going to be cheap and not want to buy this book and get the MBA inventory code.” So, you gave them this, basically, really rudimentary way to discover the primary appreciation language of someone in the workplace. You said number one, observe what that person requests of others. Number two, listen to their complaints. Number three, explore how they are encouraged. Can you take a minute to expand upon these three things?
[0:17:54] GC: Yeah. There are three informal ways to discover someone's language. Yeah. One is by observing their behavior. What I mean is just keep your eyes and ears open to how they express appreciation to other people. If you hear them always giving affirming words to other people, that's a clue that that's what they want to receive, because we typically speak what we want to receive. Not always, but that's a clue.
Then secondly, what do they request most often? If you hear them requesting people to do things for them to help them, then acts of service is probably their language. If they're the kind of person that's always asking to have lunch or, “Could we sit down and talk for a minute?” they're asking you for quality time. Then, what do they complain about most often? If they say, “I don't know why I don't ever get invited to any of the meetings they have around here?” They're telling you, “I feel left out. I'm not getting quality time.” If you listen to those three things: what do they request, and what are they complaining about, you can pretty well figure out, first of all, your own appreciation language and the other person's appreciation language.
[0:18:59] JR: Yeah. That's really good. I love how informal that is. I also love the people you work with don't have to know that you're doing this. You could just observe them and what they're talking about in order to know how you can love them as yourself, right, to love them in the language that they want to be loved in. I remembered this story, I haven't read it in a long time, but of when this goes wrong and when you don't know the language of appreciation in the workplace, it was in this great book called, DisneyWar about Michael Eisner's tenure as CEO of Disney.
Eisner and Bob Iger, like did not have the greatest relationship. Part of its stem from this meeting, Iger was doing a great job after Disney had acquired ABC and Michael Eisner wanted to recognize and show appreciation to Iger. So, he invites him to his hotel room. It's Michael Eisner, Bob Iger in this guy named Michael Ovitz. They're sitting there and Bob Iger walks in the room and Michael Eisner hands Bob Iger a watch, right? Because he like knew that Bob Iger really liked watches. Iger afterwards is like, “Why would you give me a watch? You pay me millions and millions of dollars. This is not at all showing your appreciation for me.” Good example of getting this one. What's your language of appreciation in the workplace, Dr. Chapman? What's your primary one?
[0:20:22] GC: Words of affirmation.
[0:20:23] JR: Words of affirmation. I love it. That’s mine too. You say in the book, you said when it comes to words of affirmation, be as specific as possible. What are a couple of examples or maybe just an example of a specific verbal praise that you've received at work that you still remember to this day?
[0:20:41] GC: Yeah. Well, I think I remember a time that a guy said to me. He said, “Dr. Chapman.” He said, “I know that you're really, really busy, but I just want to say how much I appreciate the fact that you officiated at my wife's funeral.” He said, “I cannot tell you how much that meant to me.” The specific things, that's what you're looking for in an appreciation is giving them specific things that you appreciate. Yeah. It's so important.
[0:21:06] JR: Hey, according to the data, what are the three most common languages of appreciation in the workplace?
[0:21:12] GC: Well, words of affirmation is about 40% of the people or so. Then quality time comes second. Taking time to be with them. It can be lunches or talking on breaks or things like that. Then the acts of service is number three. Gifts is number four. Then as we say, almost no one had physical touch.
[0:21:31] JR: Yeah. Does this change when you're in a remote working environment?
[0:21:35] GC: It's a good question. I don't know that it does. I mean, this is so new. We haven't done any research on it, but I think it would tend to be the same. Now, here's another question I sometimes get, is your love language at home in family relationships, the same as your work relationship? The answer is no. We found there's only about a 38% correlation that is 38% of the people. Their love language and family relationships is the same as their appreciation language at work, but that means for the other 62%, I say 62, I'm not good at math, 72, maybe.
The bulk of the people, it's not going to be the same at work as it is at home because, let's face it, family relationships are different from work relationships, but this need to feel appreciated is the same basic need. It's a need all of us have to feel loved and appreciated by the significant people in our lives. It's meeting that same emotional need.
[0:22:33] JR: I get questions from our listeners all the time of, “Hey, I'm working more and more remotely. I want to show Christ's love to my team in a remote environment.” What advice would you have? Where do they need to be more intentional, right, as there working remotely to show the love of Christ others?
[0:22:50] GC: Well, I think this is certainly one way, because it's such a deep emotional need for everybody you're working with. They have the need to feel appreciated by the people in their lives. So, even if you're working remotely, if each of you took the quiz, because you can't observe their behavior and those other things that I gave, but if each of you took the quiz, just an effort. “I heard about this concept. I read this book. I want you guys to read the book and take this quiz. Let's all of us take it and see what can happen.” Then you know exactly what you can do to express appreciation to each other in your work group, even though you're working remotely.
[0:23:25] JR: Yeah. It's really, really good. Yeah. Listen, we're talking about a quiz that costs like $15. This is an absurdly inexpensive way to love your co-workers as yourself. Hey, Dr. Chapman, pastor to us for a minute. Why should Christians be particularly good at showing appreciation in the workplace? What resources do we as Christ followers have unique access to that should enable us to be the most appreciative people, most loving people at work in the world?
[0:23:53] GC: I think a couple of things. One is, what Jesus said when he said, “The new commandment I give to you that you love one another, as I have loved you, you love one another. By this will they know that you’re my disciples.” In other words, he gave the non-Christian world the right to judge whether or not we're truly following him by the way we love people. That makes it extremely important. But here's a positive thing. Christians have outside help in loving others. Romans chapter five and verse five says, “The love of God is poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit.”
Remember, love and appreciation doesn't begin with a feeling. You don't have to have positive feelings toward a person to still express appreciation to them, because you know, they're a human made in the image of God and therefore they're extremely important, even though you may not have positive feelings toward them. You're saying to God, “Lord, you know this guy I work with and you know he irritates me. I don't have a lot of positive feelings for him, but I know you love him and Christ died for him. I'm opening my heart for you to pour your love into me and let me be your agent for loving him by expressing appreciation to him, even though I don't have positive feelings for him.”
We have outside help. The non-Christian doesn't have that kind of help. We can be agents of the loving people that are unlovely. I remind you, God loved us while we were dirty rotten sinners and sent Christ to die for us. We can love somebody who's a dirty rotten sinner in his power.
[0:25:28] JR: That's exactly right. I heard the story recently of one of Fred Rogers' co-workers on the set of Mr. Rogers Neighborhood who was asked to explain after Rogers died. How it was possible that a human being could have lived and be this loving, and this appreciative in the workplace, because he was truly remarkable. I loved what this guy said. I don't think I'll ever forget it.
He said, “Fred Rogers, didn't need anything from you or from me.” What I think he was saying is Rogers was so filled up with the Holy Spirit, was so filled with an experience of God's love that he had achieved what Tim Keller called the freedom of self-forgetfulness, right? He was so filled with the love of Christ that he was free to extend that love and appreciation to others. That's the ultimate resource. We have to draw upon to show otherworldly love and appreciation to those we work with. Amen?
[0:26:25] GC: Amen. That's powerful. Absolutely. Yeah. I think when we have a close walk with God, we're going to be more and more like Christ. If you look at that lifestyle of Christ, Peter said about Jesus, He went about doing good. A one-centered summary of the lifestyle of Jesus. That's our model to go about doing good. Here's one way we can do good in the workplace.
[0:26:48] JR: Yeah. How will the love the Christian show in the workplace look differently than the non-Christian? You already hit on one, which is, hey, we're going to choose to love. Love will be a verb for us, not a feeling. We will choose to love those that we don't like. Can you think of any other ways that Christian love will look different from the world's love at work?
[0:27:07] GC: Well, I think typically, people operate on their emotions. See, if they have positive feelings towards someone, that is their personalities tend to click and they just feel comfortable around them. Then they're going to be expressing love and appreciation to that person, just naturally. But if they don't have positive feelings toward the person, because of the way they talk, or the way they look, or the way they act or something else. If they don't have positive feelings toward them, then they just ignore those people and stay away from those people.
All of us do that by nature, but as Christians, we're not called to live by our emotions. You can't stimulate emotions. It happens because of circumstances. Things happen, people say things, whatever, and you have feelings, negative and positive feelings. That's not to be our motivation. Our motivation is the commands of Jesus and the model of Jesus. So, we can choose an attitude of love and appreciation rather than being controlled by only responding to the people that we have positive emotions for.
[0:28:08] JR: Yeah. It's good. I would also add to that. I think the Christ follower, I think she's going to show appreciation to those who cannot repay her appreciation. I think about Jesus' words in Luke 14 about hospitality, and showing hospitality to those who can't repay us. I think we're going to extend that to appreciation. Hey, we're going to show appreciation not just to the people on our teams who we want to motivate. We have some ulterior motive to show appreciation to them. We're going to show appreciation to the janitor who's not on our team, just because he's an image bearer and Christ died for him just as much as he died for me, right?
[0:28:45] GC: Absolutely. I was in a restaurant last night and there was a young girl, she looked to be a teenage girl. She was working cleaning up tables and all that thing. She wasn't a waitress. She was just doing the janitorial-type stuff. I was so impressed by that, as I sat there. Then when it was all over. I went over and found her. She had a broom in her hand and I said, “I am so encouraged to see a young lady your age working here in this kind of work.” I said, “I just so appreciate you. I want to give you a tip.” I gave her a $5 bill.
Well, she won't forget that. She won't forget that. Someday I'll be back in there and she'll see me and she'll say, “Oh, that's that man.” I’ll maybe even have a conversation with her. You never know what can come out of things like that, but you plant seeds by doing good to people whether you know they're a Christian or whether you don't know they're a Christian.
[0:29:38] JR: Yeah. Amen. Well said. Dr. Chapman, we end every episode the same way by asking our guests the same three questions. Number one, which books do you find giving away most frequently? If we opened up your Amazon order history, what book would we see popping up over and over and over again for you to give your friends?
[0:30:00] GC: I think it would be, The 5 Love Languages. I have to say that.
[0:30:03] JR: You've bought at least a million of those 20 million, right? I mean, come on.
[0:30:11] GC: Oh, yeah. Yeah, it had to be The Love Languages.
[0:30:15] JR: That's good. Hey, most of our guests on this podcast are not pastors or religious professionals. They're Mere Christians working as entrepreneurs, baristas, or mechanics. Do you know anyone that fits that bill that you would love to hear on a podcast like this talking about how the gospel leads them to work differently in the world?
[0:30:35] GC: Whoa. That's a hard question.
[0:30:37] JR: I know. That's why I asked it.
[0:30:41] GC: Yeah. There's a young guy in our city, his father owned the Truth Broadcasting Network. I don't know if you're familiar with that. It's a large Christian broadcasting network. This is his son. The father died this past year, actually. I've always admired how open he was and the things he did in the community. In addition to it, he has several stations now that he operates on his own, as a part of that network, but he meets weekly with a group of men for morning breakfast. Many of them are men from a different race and culture than he is. It’s just like you and me. Also, just every time I turn around, I hear about something else about what he's doing. He's so open with his faith in talking with people. Yeah, his name is Stu Epperson. Stu Epperson, Jr.
[0:31:31] JR: I'll look him up. That's great. All right, Dr. Chapman, you're talking to this audience of Mere Christians all over the globe, very diverse, vocationally. What's one thing from our conversation today, do you want to reiterate to our listeners before we sign off?
[0:31:46] GC: I would say whatever you do, do it as though you were doing it to Jesus, because he said, when you do it to the least of these, you do it to me. If we've got that in our minds, then we're going to freely reach out to people, because we're going to see Jesus in that person. So, we're doing it as though that person were Jesus. You'll do your best in everything you do if you follow that model.
[0:32:14] JR: Amen. So, simple and we hear it so frequently, but if we really did it, oh my word. Oh, my word. The world would be a very different place.
Dr. Chapman, I want to thank you and commend you for the exceptional work you've done throughout your career for the glory of God and the good of others, for showing us how practically to love our spouses, our neighbors, and our co-workers as ourselves in the language God has given them to speak and to receive. My friends, if you haven't read, The 5 Love Languages, where have you been for 30 years? If you haven't read, The 5 Languages of Appreciation in the Workplace, go check it out, especially as we head into this new year and we all seek to love our co-workers as Christ has loved us.
Dr. Chapman, thank you for being with us today.
[0:32:58] GC: Well, thank you, Jordan. I enjoyed chatting with you today. God bless you in what you're doing.
[0:33:05] JR: That was a heck of a way to end 2023. Don't worry, we got just as great of a guest coming up next week in our first episode of 2024. I've been holding back on this one. I recorded the first episode of 2024 in like, I don't know. September of 2023. But saving this gem for you guys next week. Hey guys, thank you so much for tuning in. Merry Christmas. Happy New Year. I'll see you in 2024.
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